Professional Advice

July is Healthy Vision Month

BY: CDC, National Eye Institute, Caldwell Medical Center, and AAO

  The health of our eyes is often overlooked, even though we heavily depend on them every day. Mental and general health has experienced information propagation in the past couple decades, but vision health is not as promoted as the other two. Our Vision is equally important to our physical and mental health. Vision can be affected by genetics, environment, healthy diet and exercise, UV rays, and other medical conditions such as diabetes.

Vision can also be impacted by our environment. Some examples include UV rays, workplace environments, sports, digital devices, etc. One way to protect our eyes from damage is wearing protective eyewear for workplace environments such as construction sites and other harmful dust filled environments and sunglasses for protection against UV rays such as the sun, lasers, or other high intensity lights.

Dust, debris, and harmful substances can all be damaging to our eyes. These injuries might lead to immediate, temporary, or permanent vision loss. It is very important to immediately wash out the harmful substances and dust particles. UV rays can reflect off reflective surfaces such as glass, sand, and water to sunburn our eyes and potentially result in temporary blindness.

As with everything else, healthy vision can be supported and sustained by a healthy lifestyle. Eating healthily with lots of vegetables and exercising regularly are also important in maintaining a healthy vision. However, when exercising it is important to remember to wear protective eye wear such as sunglasses.

Vision can also be affected by various diseases and conditions such as diabetic eye disease, cataracts, glaucoma, age related macular degeneration, etc. As with other medical conditions, early discovery means having an increased chance of saving our vision. An example would be cataract, which is one of the leading causes of blindness in the U.S. It can lead to blindness if not discovered and treated in time.

Cataract gets more difficult to treat as it is left untreated because cataract gets more difficult to remove with time. Glaucoma too is a difficult disease, but for different reasons. There are no noticeable symptoms in the early stages of this disease, with vision loss occurring so slowly that it would be mistaken for age related vision loss, unaware that it will cause irreversible blindness. Even age-related macular degeneration can be more manageable than before with new treatments discovered over the last 10 years. People with diabetes are more likely to develop eye diseases that lead to blindness such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and cataracts.

Early awareness of a disease or condition can help treat or at least manage a disease in time to stop or slow down blindness. Yearly eye exams can help us get a fighting chance against those diseases that rob us of our sight. Eye care professionals recommend having a fully dilated comprehensive eye exam once a year. Visit an eye care profession if you experience the following symptoms: decreased vision, eye pain, drainage or redness of the eye, double vision, floaters (tiny specks that appear to float before your eyes, circles (halos) around light sources, or flashes of light.